North Carolina Tea Party Works To Abolish School Integration

The Tea Party-backed Republican school board in Wake County, North Carolina, an area that has been known for successful integration, pledges to “say no to the social engineers!”

…critics accuse the new board of pursuing an ideological agenda aimed at nothing less than sounding the official death knell of government-sponsored integration in one of the last places to promote it. Without a diversity policy in place, they say, the county will inevitably slip into the pattern that defines most districts across the country, where schools in well-off neighborhoods are decent and those in poor, usually minority neighborhoods struggle.

The NAACP has filed a civil rights complaint arguing that 700 initial student transfers the new board approved have already increased racial segregation, violating laws that prohibit the use of federal funding for discriminatory purposes. In recent weeks, federal education officials visited the county, the first step toward a possible investigation.

High poverty schools have traditionally not been as successful, but the tea partiers think that student should go to closest schools, even though few get bused more than five miles under what has been a very successful plan.

We knew that over time, high-poverty schools tend to lose high-quality teachers, leadership, key students – you see an erosion,” said Bill McNeal, a former superintendent who instituted the goal as part of a broad academic plan. “But we never expected economic diversity to solve all our problems.”

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“I want these kids to be culturally diverse,” said Clarence McClain, who is African American and the guardian of a niece and nephew who are doing well in county schools. “If they’re with kids who are all the same way, to break out of that is impossible. You’ve got to step outside your little world.”